


Blisters

by objectlesson



Category: Lana Del Rey (Musician), Marina & the Diamonds
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, Class Differences, Drunken Kissing, F/F, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gossip, Horseback Riding, Horses, Sleepovers, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Lana is hugging her. Soft, warm, smooth, lotion-smelling rich-girl arms draped over her own sun-burned neck. It makes her want to run, at the same time she wants to sink into it. Into all the of the things she thought she could never have: quiet shared laughter, gifted gloves, the word baby from the lips of another girl her age, instead of leered out an open car window on the street as she walked to school.Marina hugs Lana back, and wonders if this is what it means to have a friend.





	Blisters

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my dear friend Vanessa!!! I hope its everything you wanted love <3 It's based loosely off of/inspired by Taylor Swift's It's Nice to Have a Friend

The tender skin between Marina’s index and pinkie finger stings where her blisters have ruptured.

She winces but rides through the course anyway. She’s on a new school horse prospect, an underweight bay thoroughbred recently trailered in from the Inland Empire. He’s off the tracks and green broke, and although he _can_ jump, he’s not a jumper. All he knows how to do right is run, so he charges each fence, sends her sailing up onto his neck when he takes off. She knows she shouldn’t be fighting him at the bit, but it’s her instinct when she feels outmatched so she tries to hold him back anyway, using her arms to slow him down rather than her seat. It doesn’t work, it only rubs her skin raw.

_“_Marina,” her instructor yells, arms crossed over her narrow chest as Marina jumps the last oxer and struggles to pull the horse back into a trot. “Are you even counting your strides? You over jumped every fence.” 

“I know,” she grinds out through her teeth as the horse tosses his head, wrestling with her. It seems unfair she’s being judged for doing anything beyond staying on this horse. Her classmates are all on broke to death school horses or their _own_ mounts: fancy, safe, immaculately trained warmbloods. She works for her lessons though, so she always gets the shit horses, the crazy horses, the new horses. She schools them at the same time she schools herself, and it’s why she’s never learned how to jump perfectly. She can sit a buck, she can stay _on_ anything. But she can’t win ribbons at shows. 

The rest of the class’s eyes are on her, staring from where they’re lined up to jump the course next. _You weren’t asked to ride the prospect_ she thinks fiercely. _It was me. She asked me, she trusted me. You would be in the dirt if you jumped this horse._

The bay spins, lurching as he chews and froths at the bit. She forces herself to sit back, to give him his head because she _knows_ he’s only panicking because he feels contained. Her blisters throb, but finally, finally he slows down. She unlocks her fingers and pats his neck with a trembling hand. “Keep him more collected next time,” her instructor says as she takes her place in line. 

It makes her ache to hear that, but she grits her teeth and nods anyway. 

The girl in front of her shifts in her saddle, turns to look at her. She has big brown eyes and that rich look about her, a softness and a paleness and a _smoothness _that only comes from people who do not have to work for the things they want. Her name is Lana and she’s the instructor’s favorite and Marina thinks she’s incredibly beautiful, at the same time she hates her for existing. She’s always in her lessons and she’s always quiet, always rides her horse effortlessly, sending him over each fence in perfect form because all she has to do to get him to look like that is _sit_ on him. Marina would kill to ride a horse like that.

She bristles, braces herself for an insult, a backhanded compliment. It’s always how rich girls at the barn talk to her. 

Instead, Lana bites her lip and says, “ _I_ think you did great. God, my heart was in my throat watching, I would have fallen ten times.” 

Marina blinks, shocked to be validated. “It’s not that bad, I don’t worry about falling,” she lies defensively. 

“Really? I worry about you falling. Not that I think you’d a bad rider, you’re amazing. But because I’m always worrying. About every little thing.” 

Her eyes are so dark, her lips so pink. She doesn’t ever flush when she rides, because it’s not a work out for her, probably, with her thick strong thighs and expensive horse. Marina doesn’t think she’s ever seen Lana sweat. “It’s just. It’s annoying because I’m too busy keeping him from bolting I can’t count my strides, I can barely do anything but keep him balanced and moving forward in the right direction,” Marina grinds out. It sounds more defeated than she means it to. She's never been good at boasting when self deprecation is an option.

“If you ever want to ride Shasta, just let me know,” Lana says easily, lazily. She pats her giant dapple grey, like she has no fucking idea what a commodity he is. “I’d be happy to let you use him for a lesson. He could learn a thing or two from you, probably.” 

Her smile is so warm as she says it, and something about the twist of her mouth makes Marina’s stomach drop.She imagines this is how boys feel when girls like Lana look at them, flirt with them. Her cheeks heat up and she glaces down, tugging anxiously at her horses mane, where it splits over his bony withers. “Um, thanks,” she mumbles. “That’s really nice of you.” 

“Enough chit-chat, girls,” their instructor snaps. “Save it for after the lesson.” 

Lana and Marina giggle together conspiratorially, caught, and it makes Marina’s heart clench up. She doesn’t ever feel like she gets to giggle with the girls she rides with, so she pretends she doesn't want to. That she’s above it. But once it happens, it’s a warm, addictive rush. She wants to be Lana’s friend. 

Once their instructor turns her back, she gently eases her heels into her horse’s side, trying to urge him forward without too much enthusiasm. He ambles up next to Lana and Shasta. “Sorry,” she whispers once they’re side by side, the line interrupted. She doesn’t look at Lana, gaze fixed on one of their classmates as she takes her seasoned school horse over the course slow but steady. “Didn’t mean to get you busted.” 

“It’s fine, it was fun,” Lana whispers back, leaning out of the saddle, their shoulders nearly brushing. She's wearing a velvet show helmet, and it glints in the sun. “It’s not actually that great, being the teachers pet. She’s not hard enough on me. I want to be challenged, like you. I want to _actually_ ride, you know?” 

Marina is not sure why, but her heart is pounding. She tightens her grip on the reins, forgetting her blisters. They burn and she hisses, letting go with her right hand and flexing it. Lana’s dark eyes track the movement. “My fingers are like, bleeding,” she explains, peeling off one of her gloves. “These nylon gloves are crap, horses like this wear holes in them.” 

“Oh, baby,” Lana murmurs, pouting. 

It hits Marina square in the chest, leaves her breathless. She's never had a friend who called her pet-names before; the sorts of girls she hangs out with would think it was stupid, would roll their eyes. But when it comes from Lana, there’s a sincerity she gravitates towards, wants to suck up like the parched earth of a desert. It confuses her. She’s always prided herself on not being that sort of girl. “It’s no big deal,” she mumbles, wringing her raw hands hating how hot her cheeks are. 

It’s Lana’s turn to jump the course. Her gaze lingers for a moment and she mouths something Marina can’t decipher before she moves Shasta into a trot, turning her head, lips pursed and gaze fixed ahead of her at the first jump. 

The way she rides is lovely, and Marina watches, wondering what a girl like Lana would look like on a horse like_ her _current mount, with his long stride, his dull mouth. Marina tucks her sweaty, ruined glove into ditch under the pommel, and wonders. About friends who call each other baby, and decent riders, what happens to them on unbroken horses. 

—-

At the cross ties after her lesson, Marina gingerly holds the curry comb as she rubs it along her horse’s girth mark. None of the other horses from the lesson are as sweaty as he is. Because they’re more in shape, but also because no one else rode their horse as hard. They didn’t _have to. _She’s picking his hooves when her instructor comes by, leather crop tucked into her breeches, aviators masking her eyes with nothing but reflection. “How is he?” she asks, patting his neck before she checks his teeth, his racing tattoo. He stamps his foot and nearly kicks Marina in the process. 

She rights herself, wiping sweat from her brow. “He needs work. He’s got a long stride and over-jumps. You could only really put a strong rider on him, someone who knew what she was doing. Who could actually ride, be more than a passenger. Lots of energy, though, like with some work I think he could be solid.” 

“Or, we get him fed and full-muscled and he ends up being too much for anyone handle,” her instructor offers, frowning. “Time will tell.” 

And with that she’s gone. No _good work,_ no _thank you. _Marina doesn’t expect it, usually, she knows her place at this barn, what she gets in exchange for her work study. But talking to Lana out in the ring, however brief, made her feel _good_ about herself. About her riding. And to have it be so easily dismissed to discuss a prospect horse stings. She's still grinding her teeth about it when Lana walks over, knee-boots squeaking, beautiful brown hair twisted up into a barely sweat-damp bun on the top of her head. “Hey,” she says, smiling. She looks like a swimsuit ad for the sixties and again, Marina is caught off guard by how much she feels that in her stomach. 

“Hey back,” she says, patting the bay’s damp neck. 

“I wanted to give you these,” Lana says, handing her a pair of fancy leather riding gloves. “I only used them a few times.” 

“What, they don’t fit?” Marina asks, marveling at the soft tanned hide, the way they're broken in but not too much. Her heart flutters. “They’re so nice, fuck.”

Lana giggles and it comes out breathless. “They fit. But they’re black, and my new show-set is all chocolate brown. I know that sounds—it sounds stupid. But I _have_ training gloves and its a shame these would go to waste and you have blisters and actually _needs_ gloves and…I want you to have them.” 

Marina tries them on, flexes them in the same sweaty place Lana has flexed her own fingers. She’s not sure why, but that knowledge sticks in her brain like a foxtail in exposed flesh. 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, moved. 

“Do they fit?” Lana asks hopefully, tongue sweeping over her plump lower lip.

“Yeah, they do.” 

A look or relief washes over her face. She ducks under the cross-tie, and before Marina can even process it, Lana is hugging her. Soft, warm, smooth, lotion-smelling rich-girl arms draped over her own sun-burned neck. It makes her want to run, at the same time she wants to sink into it. Into all the of the things she thought she could never have: quiet shared laughter, gifted gloves, the word _baby _from the lips of another girl her age, instead of leered out an open car window on the street as she walked to school. 

Marina hugs Lana back, and wonders if this is what it means to have a friend. 

—-

Lana doesn’t disappear into the darkness the way Marina half expects her to. She lingers like a lipstick stain, like hoof prints in arena dirt. 

Marina has never been close to anyone at the barn before, never had a girl to gossip with in the tack room, no one to share her snacks or walk her to the bike-rack after her lesson. It’s thrilling, the way Lana doesn’t seem to care that she stays sometimes to muck stalls or turn horses out. “It’s how I pay for my lessons,” she admits one day, hooking school horses up to the hot-walker while Lana stands in the shade, grazing Shasta. “It’s also why I always get the shitty horses.” 

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Lana says, flicking her hair off her shoulder, lifting it up to air out the invisible perspiration on her neck. She’s gazing down, and her lashes always look so fucking _long_ when she does that. “Like, you should get _good_ horses since you do so much around here. You should ride whoever you want. Get first pick.” 

“That’s not how it works,” Marina mumbles, rolling her eyes even though she’s charmed by Lana’s ignorance more than she’s annoyed by it. “They bust your ass if you can’t pay them.” 

Lana opens her mouth, then closes it again, frowning. She’s offered to pay for Marina to take a lesson on Shasta a few times, and although Marina’s heart leaps at the mere idea every time, she could never accept charity like that. It’s too low, too embarrassing. Plus, she already feels like Lana taking an interest in her as a _friend_ is too good to be true. Anything beyond that sparks suspicion. It stops feeling like luck and starts feeling like pity. Marina does not need Lana’s pity. 

“You want to come over after you finish up here?” Lana offers instead of offering money. Marina isn’t expecting it, so she balks, whipping her head up to look at Lana, mouth open. 

“Really?” she asks. She doesn’t feel like the sort of friend girls like Lana invite into their homes. Parents don’t like her, she’s got big tits so they think she wears too much make up, dresses too slutty, even if she doesn’t. Her body has condemned her since she was twelve so instead of hiding it she leans into the reality, and that makes them hate her even more, like they can tell just from looking at her and smelling the smoke on her clothes that she’s not the sort of girl they want daughters to send the night with. 

“Yes, really. My parents aren’t home,” she says then, like she’s reading Marina’s mind. Then, once Marina walks over to join her, she leans in close and says, “we can raid their liquor closet.” 

They giggle, and Lana threads her arm around Marina’s lower back, where sweat collects. Then they walk back to the barn together, knocking hips, paddock boots squeaking. 

—-

It turns out Lana lives walking distance from the barn, in one of those gated communities with a combination key-pad, houses half-hidden in ivy hedges. Marina tries not to stare, tries not to look like she's staring. 

Lana skips up her long gravel driveway, the silver numbs of her spurs glinting in the low light. Her porch is bigger than Marina’s bedroom. “I have the house to myself all weekend, if you want to sleep over,” she says breathlessly, fumbling with her keys, unlocking the door with all its clouded glass panels. “My older brother is supposed to be babysitting me, but he left to stay in our Malibu beach house with his girlfriend. I sometimes get scared all alone,” she says then, shifting her gaze, something hectic and wild about it. “If you need permission…or like your mom, if she’s the kind who needs to talk to another mom? I do an amazing mom impression,” she jokes, kicking off her boots, bending at the waste to unzip her half-chaps. All the ways she moves stick in Marina’s mind, snag like nails in lace. There’s something both effortless and awkward about Lana, like she doesn’t _care_ if men want her for any other reason save for her money, because she has enough it can smooth over her every transgression, every way she is imperfectly performing girlhood. Or maybe, she doesn’t want them to look at her at all. Maybe the way she’s both sexy and innocent isn’t an act, and Marina would never known because there’s never been a time in her life she wasn’t obsessively aware of what people thought of her. 

“My mom doesn’t care if your mom is here or not,” she says. “I can text her, it won’t be a big deal. I just..I don’t have like, a toothbrush. Or clothes to sleep in or anything?” 

“I have extra everything! You can borrow, just, please stay?” Lana begs, swaying closer, flashing her impossible, famous pout. 

Marina’s cheeks heat up. “Sure. If we really break into that liquor closet.” 

“Yes!” Lana cries out, doing a clumsy pirouette on the marble floor in socked feet. Marina giggles, and catches her as she half falls, and in half an hour they’re sipping strawberry Smirnoff and sprite from glass champagne flutes, spread out in the family room playing Grand Theft Auto on a gaming console so new Marina doesn’t even know what it’s called. 

“This is so _violent,” _Marina slurs, her car swerving messily as she tries to use the controller to reach for her gun. Lana is cackling, her hair an over the big throw pillow they’re sharing. She smells like Jasmine, even after riding, and Marina can’t help feeling anxious every time she catches a distant whiff of her own sweat. She’s too tipsy to do anything about it, though, and Lana hasn’t said anything. She keeps dipping close with half-lidded eyes, breath hot and boozy, strawberry sweet. She isn’t afraid to touch Marina, to squirm close and steal her drink and tickle her sides and laugh at the screen when it makes her crash. “Seriously, this game is fucked. I’m worried about your brother. This is what’s wrong with guys these days, they play games like this and it makes them all, desensitized to the world or something.” 

“Oh, he’s absolutely school shooter material,” Lana said breezily. “And Grand Theft Auto is _not _the only thing that’s wrong with guys these days. It’s everything. It’s the whole fucking world. They’re all terrible.” 

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Marina asks nervously, gaze fixed on the screen. She’s not sure why, but she dreads the answer to this question. Lana is too pretty _not_ to have a boyfriend, but she’s only heard slews of rumors about her, so wild and outlandish they can’t all possibly be true. Everyone at the barn talks about Lana with equal parts awe and disdain, and Marina never really _noticed_ until they became friends an everyone else swarmed her for information. Before that, she was too far on the outside of the social scene there to pick up anything at all. Now, she’s heard an earful: That Lana has got a forty year old sugar daddy who buys her diamonds. That she’s engaged to a college aged boy in the military who writes her love letters. That she has a drug dealer boyfriend who beats her up. That she’s single because one of her old boyfriends gave her herpes and no one will kiss her. _That’s bullshit,_ Marina said when she heard that one. It seemed positively unbelievable anything would keep people from wanting to kiss a girl like Lana. 

“No,” she says firmly before looking down at her lap, before swigging deeply from her drink. Her throat ripples and she shudders after she swallows. “I hate boys.” 

Marina giggles, and crashes her car. “Me too.” 

“Cheers,” Lana says then, and licks her lips while things smoke and burn on screen. 

—-

They’re drunk, so it takes a full hour to build a functional fort in Lana’s room. 

It’s really just a tent, at this point. Blankets and sheets draped over a desk chair and a lamp, mountains of pillows stuffed inside so they can lie across them. It’s dark inside, but if Marina could see, she’s sure the room would be spinning. “I want to ride Shasta,” Marina announces in the shadow. Lana’s arm is pressed up against hers, warm and flexing as she fiddles with some atmospheric mood-lighting app on her phone. 

Finally, a warm pink spills out of the screen. “Here we go,” she murmurs, holding it up and casting them in a sunset glow. “You can ride him whenever you want, seriously. I’d offer to give you a lesson but—you obviously know _more_ than me. I couldn’t teach you shit.” 

“Yes you could!” Marina argues, reaching messily for Lana, shifting the phone so the light’s not burning her eyes. Lana’s arm falls heavily to her stomach, and the illumination shifts to the top of their tent, the folds in the white sheet draped over them like ghosts. She thinks of first communion dresses, wedding dresses. Dresses she never wore because she’s lived a different life, sped through _different_ markers of girlhood. Getting her first period on a field trip, bleeding through clothes. Smoking her first cigarette under the bleacher in the 8th grade. Coughing so hard she nearly threw up. Falling off of one hundred horses. “I can ride but my form sucks. I need someone to be nitpicky, but like. On a horse I can actually just _ride_ without having to focus on staying in the fucking saddle. So, gimme a lesson. Teach me how to be pretty.” 

“You are pretty,” Lana murmurs quietly, rolling over. The phone falls off her and suddenly they’re cloaked in darkness yet again. It smells like strawberry and jasmine and under all of that sweetness, the sharp bite of Marina’s sweat. The salt and leather smell of horses. Her heart starts to pound, and like a miracle, Lana takes her hand. Their fingers lace. “You’re the prettiest girl at the barn. I’ve always thought so.” 

Marina snorts, tries to pull away, but Lana squeezes her hand to keep her there. It seems so sincere she stops struggling. _“_Lana,_you’re_ the prettiest girl at the barn, duh. I just have the biggest tits. There’s a difference.” 

It’s supposed to dissipate the tension, it’s supposed to make Lana dissolve into laughter. Instead, her breath catches, and as Marina’s eyes adjust to the darkness, she sees her tongue flick out to wet her plump lower lip. “No. You’re the prettiest. I—I always wanted to talk to you, but I was too scared. You’re such a good rider and seem so…_above_ it all and I just. It took me ages to work up the nerve.” 

“That’s—that’s crazy,” Marina slurs, shutting her eyes. “Why would _you_ need to work up the nerve to talk to _me? _You’re the instructor’s favorite. You’re _perfect, _you never even _sweat, _you—you’re rich.” 

“I like when you sweat,” Lana whispers, and then she’s leaning forward, she’s hefting herself up before she’s coming closer and closer, like a shooting star. The world ends, and she kisses her. 

_Oh, _Marina thinks, hear racing, nails digging into Lana’s palm. Everything is soft, softer than any kiss she’s ever had, pinker, sweeter, slicker. Which makes no sense because it’s pitch black and Lana tastes like vodka and Marina’s mouth is bone dry in terror but still, _still. _She kisses back, and it feels like a monsoon. 

Her hand finds its way into Lana’s hair, and their shins twist up together. She throbs between her legs and thinks distantly that she’s never felt quite so much like she's catching fire before, at the same time she knows they should stop, _she_ should stop. She has blisters on her hands and that means she shouldn’t use them to palm down Lana’s back, where she’s soft, like moonlight. Like honeysuckle. Like a _girl. _

She pulls back gasping, and Lana hides her face against the thunder of her pulse. “M’so glad we became friends, Marina,” she whispers, as she toys with the waistband of her breeches, french-tip nails tender and tickling. The way she says _friend_ is drenched. It’s sticky, it’s searing. It’s not like the way Marina has heard any other girl in the whole of her life say _friend. _It reminds her of the way Lana says _baby, _and it it makes her have to squeeze her thighs together. It doesn’t mean friend at all. It means everything else, the whole world beyond that, wild and unbroken. 

“Me too,” she admits, heart pounding under the hot press of Lana’s cheek, blisters stinging as she pushes one nervous, but curious hand up the back of Lana’s shirt “M’really glad.” 

—-


End file.
